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Bounty Hunter, The (UK - BD)

Our reviewer Marcus will definitely allow at least two disintegrations this time...

Feature

Milo Boyd (Gerard Butler) is an ex-cop turned bounty hunter and when he gets the opportunity to track down and take his ex-wife Nicole (Jennifer Aniston) to jail, he jumps at the chance.

Could they find out that they still have feelings for each other? What do you think?

Jennifer Aniston and Gerard Butler's movie careers are so bizarre when you think about it. Aniston was hugely popular during her Friends period and seemed a dead cert to transfer over to the big screen and Gerard Butler seemed to have the entire world's male populace behind him after the success of 300. Yet both just seem to go by largely unnoticed in their film endeavours and both have an uncanny knack of picking some right dross to put their names against. Bounty Hunter brings them both together and even with their combined forces this movie still manages to meander.

Now I'm not against rom coms. Stuff like Nick and Norah or (500) Days of Summer aren't doing a whole lot different to the rest of the genre and they are both brilliant, but there's something about The Bounty Hunter’s type of forced set up that does absolutely nothing for me and its basically because the writer, director and the stars do absolutely nothing with it to give it a pulse.

The Bounty Hunter isn't funny. It's about a million miles away from slick, there's no chemistry between Aniston and Butler (who are both playing exactly the same characters they always play. Y'know highly strung career woman vs. wise cracking insensitive (but really very sensitive) guy) and really the plot here is so thinly cobbled together that I gave up caring by about the half-way point.

It's not that crime capers mixed with romantic comedies don't work, stuff like 1990's Bird on a Wire with Mel Gibson and Goldie Hawn is a fine example of how you can combine all the elements of action, romance and comedy and wind up with a gem but sadly Aniston is nowhere near the joy that Hawn is and despite Butler having a glint in his eye, he's not Mel Gibson in his prime.

The Bounty Hunter just potters about for one hundred and ten minutes and draws to the expected conclusion with no surprises, no peaks of interest and really has nothing that I would consider memorable or all that entertaining.

Video

This 2.35:1 image goes to show that a boring ass movie doesn't have to have a boring ass transfer. In fact, the transfer here is pretty bloody great. From the opening July 4th parade it looks absolutely gorgeous with its eye popping HD reds, whites and blues. This continues throughout the movie with all of these colours looking great in all their tones and despite hovering pretty close to being overly glossy, The Bounty Hunter holds on to its sharp impressive looks.

Skin tones all look fantastic (though lack any real detail) and the entire image looks pretty great with its bright lighting and fresh, bright visuals.

Audio

The best The Bounty Hunter can muster up is a pretty punchy soundtrack in places and two or three action scenes that play with volume as opposed to any real dynamics.

The car chase is probably the closest it comes to really showing off (even if the 80s metalesque score is more shrill than mood setting). The car skids and collisions play in the front channels well and the falling debris dances around the rears indiscriminately, creating a brief distraction from the largely flat dialogue throughout the rest of the movie.

The DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track isn't doing anything wrong it's just got nothing to do with the audio mix available and really I didn't expect much more from it.

Extras

The Making of (17:42 HD) kicks off with Butler saying how sharp and funny he thought the script was when he read it and Aniston hypes up that she's never done a movie with this much action before. Both are statements that only looking back at their past projects can make their excitement make sense because the movie is neither sharp nor has that much action.

'Stops Along The Road: Hunting Locations' (11:21 HD) takes a look at the location in the movie and 'Rules for Outwitting a Bounty Hunter' (01:21 HD) is a TV spot style puff piece with clips from the movie.

Along with BD-Live and movieIQ, there are trailers for Blu-ray is High Definition, The Ugly Truth (another movie I've forgotten all about already), Julie and Julia and Did You Hear About the Morgans?

Overall

The Bounty Hunter was not a fun way to spend a Saturday afternoon. It's drab, predictable in the worst way, pretty lifeless and writing this review mere hours later I can barely remember anything outside of Jennifer Aniston climbing out of a car boot in a pencil skirt and punching Gerald Butler in the balls, and even that wasn't funny.

The disc is a fairly run of the mill rom-com release with a pretty nice video transfer. I know my rantings probably won't turn away the hard-core rom-com fans out there, but really there is so much more out there that does this sort of thing so much better.

* Note: The above images are taken from the Blu-ray release and resized for the page. Full-resolution captures are available by clicking individual images, but due to .jpg compression they are not necessarily representative of the quality of the transfer.

28th July 2010 20:16#6

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Extras:
Making The Bounty Hunter, Rules for Outwitting a Bounty Hunter, Stops Along The Road: Hunting Locations, MovieIQ™+sync and BD-Live connect you to real-time information on the cast, music, trivia and more while watching the movie!